"A force for destruction"

I wasn't going to bother with this tripe (actually, I might owe tripe an apology), but I just can't seem to help myself. According to Dan K. Thomasson, the "NRA is a force for destruction." In Thomasson's view, apparently, a lobbying group that advocates a position with which he disagrees is akin to an American Hezbollah.

The nation's police chiefs have a serious problem. Their troops are being out-gunned, and to correct the situation taxpayers must increase law-enforcement budgets substantially or find some way to ban the circulation of weapons and ammunition meant for the battlefield - mainly, semiautomatic assault rifles and armor-piercing bullets.

That argument that police are now being forced to purchase more firepower, because they face more of it in the hands of the felons they're trying to stop, has been floating around lately (I discussed it a bit here), and frankly, it doesn't pass the smell test. Can anyone tell me of an incident since the North Hollywood bank robbery shootout just over 10 years ago, in which the problem was that the police had inadequate firepower on hand? As a side note about that incident, keep in mind that part of the solution for the police was to borrow weapons and ammunition from a nearby gun shop--if those items had not been legal for civilians, there would not likely have been such a convenient source of them for the police, and the outcome could have been tragic. Keep in mind also that this robbery was in 1997--when the federal ban on "assault weapons" had been in effect for 3 years--I guess that shows how well bans work at preventing criminals from arming themselves.

I do agree that police budgets are often somewhat lacking--the Lapeer County (MI) Sheriff's Office, for example, is so strapped for cash that it is trying to make a sale--of the department's fully-automatic M-16. Not exactly the asset one would expect the department would be willing to part with amid concerns of being "outgunned."

As to the "semiautomatic assault rifles and armor-piercing bullets," there are no semi-automatic assault rifles--assault rifles, by definition, have a fully-automatic capability. Granted, the VPC and Brady Bunch types have invented the term "assault weapons" in reference to semi-automatic, detachable magazine fed rifles, but the definition constantly changes, depending on who is doing the defining, and how ambitious he or she is about how many firearms can be banned at the time. If by "armor-piercing bullets," Thomasson means bullets that can penetrate the soft body armor normally worn by patrol officers under their shirts, then virtually all centerfire rifle ammunition, from the 19th century on, qualifies. "Meant for the battlefield" does not enter the picture here.

And where citizens are unwilling to spend the money to equip their guardians with weapons and armor now readily available to criminals, the threat to themselves and those they hire to protect them is likely to increase proportionately. It's just that simple.

This passage displays one of the fundamental philosophical differences between those who favor draconian gun restrictions, and those of us who are appalled at the idea of a government monopoly on the use of force--Thomasson thinks of police as our "guardians," hired to "protect" us (despite court ruling after court ruling stating that the police are under no obligation to protect individual citizens), while we demand that we not be stripped of our ability to protect ourselves. It's just that simple, Dan.

The Maryland legislature currently is considering a bill to ban the semiautomatic rifles, and the opposition has been loud and persistent.

By now, Thomasson has at least gotten honest enough to drop the "assault" pretense--if it's semi-automatic, he wants it banned. If he and his ideological allies win that battle, then it will be time to argue that bolt-actions, pump-actions, lever-actions, etc. are not much slower to operate than semi-autos, and need to be banned as well.

This is a land where the right to traffic in firearms, no matter how dangerous to law and order, is protected by constitutional language designed for a militia carrying muskets and enforced by a self-appointed virulent lobby called the National Rifle Association.

Interesting--he acknowledges the Constitutional protection for the right to keep and bear arms. He then dismisses it, apparently on the grounds that the Founding Fathers lacked the wit to realize that firearm technology would evolve. Obviously, they would also not have predicted the vast advancements in communications technology--looks as if the First Amendment is dangerously outmoded, as well. Or just maybe, they believed that just as freedom of speech shouldn't depend on there being no efficient means to communicate on a large scale, the right of the people to arm themselves as well as government soldiers shouldn't depend on firearms being clumsy, inefficient means of defense.

Now, poor, confused, old Jim Zumbo gets dragged back into it.

Would it be out of place here to suggest that this swift and unrelenting attack by the NRA on one of its own proves conclusively that Zumbo was right in suggesting that terrorism is not unknown to the gun lobby?

Well Dan, since you ask--yes it would be out of place. Not just because there was no "swift and unrelenting attack by the NRA" (but rather a delayed, subdued one, after a firestorm of outrage from individual gun owners whom he had equated with terrorists), but mostly because terrorism involves killing, on a large scale. Zumbo had his career wrecked and his feelings hurt--he wasn't machine gunned, blown up, or gassed to death, along with dozens (or hundreds, or thousands) of other people. That's terrorism. What the "gun lobby" (if that's what you insist on calling thousands of individual gun owners) did was retort to an unfair, inaccurate, and hurtful charge of terrorism.

That is why the increasingly frantic efforts of law enforcers to win some sort of reasonable control over the kinds of weapons they face on the street are pretty much futile. Politicians want to be re-elected.

Ahh, tragic--politicians forced to bend to the will of their constituents in order to get re-elected. If only we had a political system in which the government wasn't held to any kind of accountability--eh, Dan?

Dan K. Thomasson is a tool (if not a particularly effective one, thankfully) of tyranny.